Almost-Thanksgiving list

Unfortunately, none of these things are really things to be thankful for:

1. 81% of Americans disagree with Kelo v. City of New London in a 2009 survey, with the wording being quite generous to the pro-takings side.

2. Who possibly could have thought this was a good idea? It’s like they took every bad publicly-subsidized megaproject idea they could think of and rolled them into one.

3. NYU’s plan to build a forth tower in the middle of I. M. Pei’s three towers in Greenwich Village (discussed here by commenter Benjamin Hemric) has officially died, the death kneel coming from Pei himself. NYU’s plan B is to build the tower on a plot that they already own and can develop as-of-right. They’ll be tearing down a supermarket to build it, but who still eats food these days anyway?

4. “…there isn’t a single grocery chain store within [Detroit’s] city limits.”

5. Apparently the kiosk tear-downs in Moscow were a result of nothing more than Mayor Sobyanin’s verbal order, and the kiosks are being allowed to reopen until the city can formally close them. The unaccountable government-by-fiat of the USSR dies hard.